Calcutta, Jan. 7: Four armed men stormed into the house of a businessman in the congested Girish Park area this evening and shot at his wife and daughter, injuring them seriously.

A bullet hit the shoulder of the 46-year-old housewife, Kamala Aurora, while another one fired at her hit daughter Puja, 16, on her arm when she tried to save her mother.

Both were admitted to the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.

Police said Vinod Aurora, a businessman dealing in hosiery goods, had received a call on his mobile around 5.30 this evening from a supplier and asked him to come over.

Around 6.30 pm, four men, claiming to have come from the supplier, knocked on Aurora’s first-floor flat on Baranasi Ghosh Street. When Puja opened the door, they stormed in and two of them whipped out revolvers.

They spotted Kamala at work in the kitchen and shot at her. An alert Puja lunged forward and took the bullet in her arm. A second shot pierced Kamala’s shoulder.

Deputy commissioner of police, central division, Rajeev Kumar said Vinod’s business had not been running well over the past two years and the incident might be a sequel to a feud over money.

The police are also probing another angle, revealed in interrogation of residents, relating to an affair between Puja and a youth.

“We heard that Puja was having an affair and Kamala did not approve of the boy. We are trying to find out whether it was an act of vengeance because Kamala appeared to be the main target of the assailants,” an official said.

“Preliminary investigations suggest that the miscreants are from the same locality. The locals have identified them…. At the beginning, the family claimed that the local goons could have been hired by a supplier who was not paid for some time,” said the officer-in-charge of Girish Park police station, Dinesh Dutta Burman.

“But after talking to Vinod’s son, Manish, we are sure the shootout is a fallout of the affair. That is the reason why Kamala was the main target. We are sure of catching the culprits soon as the locals have identified them,” Dutta Burman added.